A Crime Against Humanity
by Meatball42
Summary: Someone has stolen something extremely valuable from Torchwood, and Jack's team must try to find it while their captain is incapacitated.


Title: A Crime Against Humanity  
Summary: Someone has stolen something extremely valuable from Torchwood, and Jack's team must try to find it while their captain is incapacitated.

[*]

"I can't believe it," Gwen muttered. "It's… just wrong."

"It's terrible," Tosh agreed.

"I can't imagine him without it, you know?" Gwen commented. Tosh nodded in agreement. "It's like he's not whole."

Tosh sighed. "Look at him."

Gwen looked. From their position on the couch, the two women could see Jack seated at his desk. His expression looked lost, and he was talking with his head down as though he were addressing his paperwork. Ianto was standing beside him with a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Owen snorted and Tosh and Gwen looked away from the scene. "How did this even happen?" Owen asked, his expression a strange mix of mirth and seriousness.

Tosh got up from the couch and logged onto her computer, pulling up the CCTV network. She backtracked the timestamp a half hour and isolated the outdoor café where their boss and Ianto had ordered lunch. She muttered to herself as she worked. "Fast-forwarding; oops, too far- here we go." Owen and Gwen crowded in.

"Ianto's paying the bill," Gwen narrated. "Jack's still at the table- oh, he's flirting," she said, sounding disappointed.

"There!" Tosh pointed at the screen. A short figure in jeans, a dark long-sleeved shirt and a cap walked behind Jack and casually took the captain's RAF coat from the back of his chair. Jack, leaning toward the attractive redhead at the next table, didn't notice.

"If he can't take care of his things," Gwen said disapprovingly.

"You know how much that coat means to him. We've got to do something," Tosh said to the other two.

"Like what?" Owen retorted. "We've not exactly got time to scour the city for a _coat_."

At the moment, the Rift alarm sounded. Tosh pulled up her monitor program immediately.

"What have we got?" Jack asked from the door to his office.

"Fresh Weevils," Tosh reported. "Two of them."

"Shall we go out?" Ianto said to Jack. He shrugged. "Might make you feel better."

"Sure," Jack replied, and turned his back to Ianto. A moment later, he realized that Ianto wasn't moving to fetch his coat, and sighed. "On second though, Gwen, why don't you and Owen take this one?" He retreated back into his office. Ianto gave them an apologetic look and closed the door.

For a moment, they all stood still. "Fine, whatever, we're the bloody lost and found detectives," Owen grumbled.

As they took care of the Weevils, Tosh, Owen and Gwen devised a plan of attack. Tosh found a moment to read Ianto in and he convinced Jack to let Gwen and Owen take the rest of the day off. He confided to the group that it had been far too easy, which only made Jack's team more concerned about his state of mind.

Tosh set up a search matrix for the person who'd stolen the coat on the CCTV and set up alerts on the usual auction sites. Ianto ran interference with Jack while the Japanese tech coordinated Gwen and Owen's movements. Gwen had called the police and claimed that the coat was evidence in an investigation, bravely ignoring the amusement of the police department and demanding their help. Once they'd gained the assistance of the beat officers, they traveled to the areas Tosh's matrix had isolated as probable locations for the thief. They fanned out for a search of the areas and went door-to-door asking for witnesses.

Around four in the afternoon Tosh managed to find a clear view of the perpetrator's face and forwarded the image to Gwen and Owen's helpers. In less than an hour someone recognized the young man as a petty thief with a soft spot for anything military, and they caught up with him before six pm.

Once he was brought to the police station, the teenager confessed to a whole host of pick pocketing offences and Gwen and Owen left him to the police, taking the coat as evidence. They arrived back at the Hub just as Ianto and Tosh ere running out of excuses to keep Jack from going to dinner.

"Look what we found," Gwen teased, walking up to Jack with the coat. They all smiled at Jack's look of wonder.

"How did you-" he asked, holding the long blue coat in his hands. Ianto took it from him gently and helped him put it on.

"Back where it belongs," he murmured.

Jack looked around at his team, gratitude clearly showing on his face. "Thanks, guys. Now I guess I owe you all dinner?"

"Hell yes," Owen agreed fervently, and they all made for the doors.


End file.
